Sketching Unseen Lines
by Crazyeight
Summary: Takato goes to the park to practice drawing, and in so doing finds himself doing what he does best…being a Gogglehead. For one friend, that might not be a bad thing.


Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Sketching Unseen Lines

A Digimon Tamers story by Crazyeight

Takato Matsuki stood in a meadow, sketchbook in hand and a smile on his face. Complete solitude surrounded him, save for the occasional rustling of squirrels as they went about their squirrel business which, in this case, involved trying to steer clear of the giant red reptile—a digital life form known as Guilmon—that was determined to sniff them out. Takato laughed lightly at the antics of his best friend and partner as his nose bobbed around, sniffing and snuffling for their scents. Eventually, his ruckus caused a pair of birds to immediately start dive bombing him, cussing him out angrily as they did so.

"Sorry! Sorry!" The hapless digital dinosaur apologized, but the birds were having none of it. Guilmon's bat-like ears drooped as he looked glumly down at the ground. As childish as he could be, he quickly realized that this was a no-win scenario and quickly vacated the area, running over to Takato, bemoaning being scolded like a child caught playing where he shouldn't be.

"Takatooo…"

"What's the matter boy? Were the birds too much for you?" Takato smiled as Guilmon came to a stop and looked anxiously over his shoulder. The birds were circling still, but at least were now no longer swooping toward him with the aim of putting out an eye. Not that they would have been successful as he was a digimon—an existence that offered some degree of invulnerability from physical impacts—but the attempt was problematic all the same, and still hurt.

"They're not playing nice," Guilmon wined, rubbing his head with his massive claws. "I don't even know what I did to them."

"They probably think that you're after their eggs," Takato offered, patting the usually gentle reptile's head.

"But I'm not!" Guilmon protested. Takato could only give him an apologetic shrug.

"Yeah, but they don't know that."

"Ohhh… It stinks that I can't speak bird. Takato? Why can I speak like you do but not like other animals? Aren't I made of data? You told me about how Mr. Mizuno said that the digital world is all about talking."

_Actually…communication is what he said…_ Takato thought, but it was a good question, and a bit of a surprising one coming from his partner. Guilmon could show remarkable insight at times, more so as time wore on, but his friends would never accuse him of complex thinking. Quite often, when confronted with a problem, Guilmon, much like his human partner, preferred to boil things down to whatever was in front of him and break it up into its simplest parts. This didn't imply that he was stupid; he just didn't like overcomplicating what was already obvious in his eyes.

"Well…you're made of human data so I think that might have something to do with it. I don't think we ever came up with a bird translator."

"Hmmm…" Guilmon tapped a claw against his chin and then his gold-colored eyes brightened visibly. "Hey! Maybe we can have Henry invent one! Or maybe his dad! Or Mr. Mizuno!"

"We could give it a try," Takato grinned as he sat himself down, though he didn't think the idea would go very far, or that Guilmon would remember it the next time they saw Henry or any of the Monster Makers. Keeping the world safe had a habit of being rather high on the list of 'important things to do'.

"Are you going to draw now?" Guilmon asked, his ears perking up again, quickly getting over the incident with the birds.

Takato nodded and looked around once more. "This looks like a quiet place. We're far enough from the park path that no one should be here and we won't bother anyone." Flipping open his sketchbook he gave Guilmon a stern look, attempting to adopt the authoritative look his parents often exhibited toward them. "Now remember…"

"I know, I know," Guilmon sighed. "I can't make too much noise or go too far."

"I'm sorry boy…" Takato began, only for Guilmon to shake his head.

"You don't have to apologize. You want to practice drawing. I'll wait until you're done so we can play again." He paused for a moment, gears turning inside his head. For an instant, before he spoke again, Takato could have sworn that a light bulb switched on behind his golden eyes. "But if you feel bad, can I have some Guilmon Bread with peanut butter when we get home?"

"You are obsessed…" Takato laughed, taking out his drawing supplies—a pencil, a sharpener, a ruler, and an eraser—and laying them out around him within easy reach. "But sure thing. You deserve it."

_Even though Mom will get after me again for breaking his diet…_

Guilmon plopped himself down on the grass next to the boy. Giving his partner one more smile, he took his pencil and, after picking out a scene to sketch, set it to paper.

He quickly lost himself in the act of drawing, and for many, long moments that slowly turned into minutes little could be heard except the chirping of birds and the scratching sound of his pencil on the paper. In front of him were the trees and bushes that he sought to capture. His lines were rough, and he quickly picked up his eraser to remove those that didn't curve just right or were too rigid. He knew nature contained no perfections and that his own work—while considerably more developed now than it was two years ago—was no better, but he wanted his sketch to be as close as he could possibly get to the real thing. As he erased another line, he found himself becoming a touch discouraged.

_Maybe I'm not ready for this…_ came a worry of his, one that recently cropped up when he began to take his artwork seriously enough to devote time to improving himself at the craft. He squashed the thought quickly and resumed his task, remembering how daunted he had been at the start. He wanted to do so well…and it had been nearly crushing when he found how far away from his goals he stood. There was simply so much to learn, so much to do, and so little time to do it in.

The minutes stretched into an hour and still he was not close to being done. He was grateful that he didn't bear down on his pencil like he used to, creating deep, dark lines that were almost impossible to erase (many a drawing had holes torn in them from the furious attempt to wipe away a mistake). Lighter, softer…but not too light and soft…were the order of the day.

Past the hour, Guilmon got up and sauntered off to sniff some flowers. His eye caught him and his pencil followed suit, starting to sketch him out, adding some finer of his finer details. The Guilmon he now drew was so much different from the original drawing he made from two years ago, back when he first became a Tamer. He knew so little then too, but he learned and got better as time went on. Still, he couldn't help but wonder just how different things would be now if he were more knowledgeable then. He knew, deep down in his heart, that he liked Guilmon the way he was and would never change a single bit of him…but if he had the chance?

_No._ He faced that choice before during his first, near-disastrous adventure into the Digital World. Guilmon was Guilmon, and he wouldn't trade him for anything. Besides, the real thing came out far better than he originally dreamed up. What was _not_ to like?

Still, from his adventures he took home a lesson in the power of imagination. Guilmon was the literal embodiment of that notion. _All_ digimon were in fact, but as far as he knew Guilmon was the only digimon who had been _drawn_ into existence. Taming, like drawing, was a skill that needed exercising to get better.

He wondered if there was some way he could incorporate his growing drawing skills and imagination with his Taming duties. Perhaps create new modify cards like when Kazu had scribbled together an imitation Blue Card—that magical algorithm from Mr. Mizuno that unlocked Matrix Digivolution—during a particularly hard battle? A super evolution of some kind? Or perhaps…something else?

The sky was the limit. Takato was determined to see how far it went. Licking his thumb, he smudged a spot on the drawing and took a moment to stretch and yawn before looking back up at the scene in front of him. He drank it in for a moment before returning his attention to the drawing. The pencil set itself back onto the paper where he last left off and…

_Huh?_ Takato's eye twitched and it flicked over to a tree at the corner of his vision. Something…Something was different about it now. He couldn't quite place his thumb on it. He went back and forth between the two, wondering what could possibly have changed in the brief moment that he took a break. Scratching the side of his head in confusion, he set the pencil down again at where he last left off and prepared to…

Takato blinked as something finally clicked in his mind. The tip of his pencil hung on the edge of a person's face—that of a girl leaning against a tree—trailing off at a strand of hair that hooked down past its owner's ear. The rest of the hair was done up in a peculiar, pineapple-like ponytail, and although the sketch was in black and white, he instantly knew who it belonged to.

"Rika?" he said out loud, eyebrows rising questioningly.

"Okay…" spoke up the voice of the girl in question from directly behind him. "…how did you know I was behind you? _Renamon_ teleported us here without _Dinoboy_ even noticing!"

Guilmon, had been busily sniffing around a bush when he suddenly heard Takato's shout of surprise as it broke the silence that up until that moment reigned. No sooner did he do look up to see what was going on was he greeted by a flying sketchbook just as it struck him in the face.

"Oh… Did I do something wrong?" he asked, ears wilting as the sketchbook dropped to the ground.

"It's all right, Guilmon!" Rika Nonaka called out with an amused smirk at Takato as he fought to catch his breath. "Your Goggle-brained partner is just being his usual Goggleheaded self, that's all."

"R-Rika!" Takato exclaimed, patting his chest down to see if he needed to restart his heart. He looked around, half expecting to see the rest of his friends tumbling out of the brush after her, but upon seeing no one else looked back at the red-haired girl as she approached him, her feet disturbing not a single blade of grass or twig that would betray her presence.

"Ah…hi?" he began, attempting to organized his squirreled thoughts into something a little less jumbled.

"Hey yourself," she returned in amusement as next to her a yellow-furred fox—a digimon by the name of Renamon—materialized out of thin air, Takato's sketchbook in hand. "What was with the seizure moment?"

"Well, you _did_ catch me by surprise," Takato laughed, accepting his sketchbook back from Renamon, who eyed him with more than a little amusement.

"You are a strange one," the vulpine digimon replied, "to be surprised by someone you knew was approaching you from behind."

"Huh?" Takato tilted his head to one side in dumb confusion. "Wait… You mean because I said Rika's name? But…I _didn't!_ I was just here drawing and…and…" The boy's face suddenly bloomed bright red and he resisted the urge to look at his drawing. Did he _really_ just put Rika in his drawing right before she showed up?

Rika exchanged looks with Renamon. Not for the first time did the boy get the distinctive feeling that they were 'talking' without using words.

"Off in your own world again, huh?" Rika grinned. Takato chuckled and scratched the back of his head in embarrassment at having been so caught off guard.

"You've got me," he admitted.

"Good." With that, her violet-colored eyes took on a sly look as they narrowed deviously. "So what kind of world is it where you end up saying my name at random instead of noticing I was behind you?"

Takato's scratching stopped completely.

"Um… Well… I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for that…" he began, only to interrupt himself with a nervous cough. "…only I can't think of what it could be."

"So being a Gogglehead is your fallback position, huh?" Rika chided, settling herself down. "Well, you're fortunate that I'll believe _that."_

"Takato sometimes acts funny when he's been drawing for a while," supplied Guilmon as he approached. His eyes brightened upon seeing Renamon and he waved at her. "Hi Renamon!"

"Hello," Renamon returned with a nod.

"Want to play tag?"

As if in response, Renamon vanished from view, causing Guilmon to look around him, somewhat startled by her abruptness.

"Okay… I can play hide and go seek too…" he said before sniffing the air and charging off to the side.

"He never quits," Takato observed with a rueful smile. Try as he might, Guilmon would never catch Renamon. She was just too good at hiding.

"He takes after his partner it seems." Rika eyed Takato coyly for a moment before her eyes dropped down to his sketchbook. Her eyebrows rose a little bit. Even at this distance she could see that it was immensely detailed. Leaning forward with her brow set in a curious gaze, she nodded toward the book indicatively. "Hey, can I see that? That looks pretty good."

"Ah…" Takato hesitated, his eyes flickering down to the sketch of Rika. It was cropped in a corner, barely hidden. She might miss it…

_My luck isn't that good…_

"It's…not done though."

Rika shrugged, her smile once again appearing on her lips. This time it was a soft, friendly one and not teasing. "So? You've never had a problem with showing me unfinished work before." She tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowing as she studied him intently. Takato fidgeted under her gaze, feeling as though she were reading him like an open book.

He was right.

"Something's bugging you about the drawing," she said matter-of-factly, "and you're afraid to let me see it."

"Say whaaa…?" Takato stammered, his face flushing hard. "Why do you…?"

"So you _are!"_ Rika proclaimed victoriously. "Your face says it all. We've been friends for _how_ long now?" Her eyes narrowed, becoming almost cat-like as a Cheshire grin began tugged at the corners of her mouth. "I _know_ when you're hiding something, Takato. Don't think you can pull a fast one on me."

Takato was finding it hard to put together coherent sentences and he quickly looked away from the fire-haired girl. That made things easier, even if by just a hair. Ever since puberty set in, he found it increasingly hard to look her in the eye and talk at times. It didn't help that she since only became more daring in her affectionate teasing.

_Man… Ryo's right. She can be such a Wild Cat at times…_

"I can do this all day you know," Rika prompted. "Remember…I happen to know that you're ticklish."

Now _that_ got his attention and he sat up straight, eyes widening in terror. He could remember the day she found out with picture-perfect clarity. One summer day, a little good-natured ribbing had escalated into a full blown tickle war that he lost _very_ quickly.

_And then to have my mom walk in to see what all the noise was about…_ Takato blushed in embarrassment at the memory, as did Rika, but between the two of them she insisted that it was better than for it to be _her_ mom. They would never have heard the end of it after that.

_As if I don't,_ Takato grumbled mentally, glancing down at his sketch book. Lifting it up, he handed it over to Rika, who accepted it with a triumphant smile. "All right," he surrendered. "But don't get mad, okay? I didn't mean it."

"Mean what?" Rika asked, raising an eyebrow as she turned it over and took a look. She chuckled upon seeing what he referred to. "What? You didn't mean to draw _me_ in here? I was over there, Gogglehead. I even _saw_ you drawing." Her smile dropped, but a teasing glint could still be seen in her eyes. "Are you stalking me again?"

"I didn't stalk you the first time and I…" began Takato in an aggravated tone, only to stop when something Rika said occurred to him. "Hold on… You were over there?" He pointed in the rough direction of the scene his sketchbook depicted. "You were _really_ over there?!"

Rika blinked, but nodded. Groaning, Takato dropped his face into his hands to hide the crimson blemish that rapidly invaded his face once again.

"Don't tell me…" Rika began.

"Yeah… You were _really _right. I was off in my own world. I could have sketched a digimon and not notice."

Looking down at the sketch, Rika chuckled. Turning it around she indicated a spot above where her drawing sat. "Kind of looks like you did actually. There's a smudge here that looks like Renamon while she's teleporting. She's not going to be happy about that."

Looking more closely at his drawing, Takato could only shake his head at himself. Sure enough, he recognized Renamon's outline as she vanished into the trees.

"How…?" he began, but Rika answered for him with the only word that could possibly sum it up.

"Gogglehead." Returning the sketchbook to him, she continued, "So, are you going to finish that, or am I disturbing you?"

"Ah…no. I actually came here so we wouldn't disturb anyone else." He looked at Rika apologetically. "Sorry about that."

Rika shrugged nonchalantly. "You didn't know." Turning her face to the side, she eyed him again playfully. "Or did you?"

Takato scowled. "Very funny."

"I thought so. So are you going still to draw or what?"

"Um…" He nervously scratched the back of his head. "Yeah? I-I mean, if Guilmon and I aren't bothering you or anything…"

"You worry too much," Rika snorted. "If you were, Renamon and I would just move on." She looked over Takato's shoulder to watch Guilmon's tail suddenly turn up like a red exclamation point within the sea of green grass, signaling that his search for his quarry still had not found its end. "Besides, it's been a while since we hung out, and I'm pretty sure Guilmon was getting bored before we showed up."

Takato smiled at the girl, who returned it. "Thanks Rika."

"Don't mention it," she said as he returned his attention back to the scene at hand. Picking up his pencil again, he set it to the paper. Before he could begin sketching though he felt something soft press against his back as something else, bushy tickled his neck.

"Rika…?" he began, realizing that she was using him as a pillow. Her spiky hair pushed back against his head. It…wasn't a bad feeling, but it was an odd one all the same.

"Yeah?" she returned, her voice softer now. She sounded distant, almost tired.

"Are you okay?"

"Just a little worn out. Exams were…long today. It's kind of why I came down here. I needed to get away from everyone for a bit."

Takato chuckled. He could understand that. She was a grade ahead of all the Tamers now, and as a result her course load was heavier.

_She can handle it though,_ Takato thought. _She's one of the smartest people I know._

He felt her square her shoulders against his, getting comfortable. "You don't mind, do you?"

Takato quickly scratched a line. "Only if you don't suddenly elbow me," he grinned. He felt her arm twitch at that, tempted to follow through. "Hey," he began again, a thought occurring to him. "Didn't you say that you wanted to get away from everyone for a bit?"

He felt Rika shift against him before settling down.

"Pillows don't talk," she replied. "Especially ones that are supposed to be drawing."

"Yes ma'am."

Although Rika didn't reply, Takato could have sworn that she was smiling at his response.

They stayed like that for a while, neither one of them saying anything more, until the faint orange glow of sunset began to touch the trees, setting them ablaze with light. Setting his pencil down, Takato looked over his shoulder, wondering if she should start heading home now. Although she stayed out late often, her family might still get worried.

"Rika?"

The only response he heard was faint, light breathing.

_Did she fall asleep?_

"My, isn't this a surprise," purred the voice of Renamon as she appeared in front of Takato. Blushing lightly, Takato looked up at her and rubbed the back of his head again.

"Sorry. I seem to be trapped."

"It sure seems like it," replied Renamon, getting down next to the resting girl and brushing her bangs to one side gently. "Still… As far as traps go, I wouldn't say that's a bad thing." The vulpine digimon turned her eyes—a deep azure color—to Takato's own crimson ones. "Is it?"

"However long she needs me, I'll be here," Takato replied, laughing lightly. "And there, for, you know, whenever."

A barely visible smile appeared on Renamon's muzzle. "As always."

_"Renamooonnn!"_ they heard Guilmon cry out from the depths of the park. _"Where are you?"_

"I suppose I'd better go rescue him," Renamon said in bemusement. Rising, she cast one last look at Takato and her sleeping partner before abruptly vanishing into the park. Takato tried to follow her but quickly lost her. He was alone once more, with Rika sleeping against his back. _At least I know that I can trust her with it,_ he thought, the corners of his lips tugging upward once more. Taking up his sketchbook once again he looked at the scene before him and resumed sketching, wondering what he might have missed.

As his pencil began scratching against the paper once more, He felt Rika stir against him again as she let out a contented sigh.

"Gogglehead…" she muttered affectionately, the smile on her face going unseen.

7


End file.
